EPPC Meeting

EPPC Meeting

The European Patent Practice Committee (EPPC) met on 25 and 26 April, right after the C82 epi Council meeting.

At the C82 epi Council meeting, Mr Francis Leyder was elected as the new President of the epi. Therefore, Mr Leyder stepped down as Chair of the EPPC. Mr Chris Mercer will chair the Committee until the next C83 epi Council meeting (to be held next 18 November 2017) where the election of the members of the EPPC will take place.

The EPPC discussed its new structure (as recently approved by the epi Council at its C82 meeting) and had an exchange of views with Mr John Beatty (Director Patent Procedures Management, EPO) on non-unity matters and Early Certainty. The EPPC further reviewed the PCT International Search and Preliminary Examination Guidelines. In particular, it analysed the examples concerning Unity of Invention provided in Chapter 10 with the aim of making proposals for the forthcoming Guidelines update. The Committee agreed to send further comments to Mr Emmanuel Samuelides (Chair of the PCT EPPC Sub-Committee), who committed to compile them all in a document to be sent to the EPO. Lastly, the EPPC heard brief reports on meeting held with the EPO (including SACEPO Working Party on Quality and SACEPO Working Party on Rules meetings) and prepared future internal meeting as well as further meetings with the EPO.

Should you be interested in knowing more about the topics discussed by the EPPC during its meeting, please send an email to eppc@patentepi.org.